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Bars where Pete has had a Drink (3,476 bars; 1,545 bars in Seattle) - Click titles below for Lists:

Bars where Pete has had a drink

Friday, February 23, 2018

#2620 - Rawhide Bar N Grill, Starbuck, WA - 9/12/2014

Rawhide Bar N Grill, Starbuck, WA

Just 15 miles from Palouse Falls in the southeast of Washington State is the town of Starbuck, population about 130, not far from Tucannon, Riparia and Joso, and no relation to the coffee corporation. The town was named after a railroad executive, and has basically been dwindling downward ever since around the turn of the century (that is, the turn of the last century). The traffic through down started dropping off in 1914 when the Lyons Ferry Bridge was built over the Snake River. In 1919 the town bank failed, and in 1956 the high school shut down. But from February 2011 to November 2015 there was one heck of a good old country honky tonk in town.

Mary Jo and Dan Sanderlin moved here from Colorado after visiting Starbuck to visit Dan's mom at her tackle shop. Mary Jo once ran the Sand Bar in Moses Lake, and the couple moved from jobs at a waste water treatment plant in Kalispell Montana, to a fish ladder in Thompson Falls, to laying pipe in Rifle, Colorado. They heard of a big empty building in town and decided to sell their ATVs to fund converting it into the Rawhide Bar N Grill. (Owner comments in Yelp)

They are super friendly people and their joint was a lot of fun while it lasted. They had buckets of beer, lots of country dancing, and steaks rolling in off the barbecue grill. They had poker games, horse shoes outside, and an annual Redneck Games. It seemed like the perfect rural stop in a tiny, out of the way town, and it's sad to see it go.